Small scale vegetable growing

Winter is here!
The ground is frozen solid, we’ve scoffed nearly all the fresh vegetables, but at least the house is cosy and warm.

There is very little to do in the garden at the moment, even the left-over root vegetables are stuck in the ground! Our new chickens, ‘The Wee Ones’ (aka Caramello, Punky, Tufty, Great White and Small White) are not that ‘wee’ any longer, they are growing fast and Tufty is now brave enough to eat out of my hand. Hopefully it won’t be long before they start laying. I miss my egg at breakfast!

A lot of people have asked me if you need a large garden to grow your own vegetables and I always say ‘no, you can grow some vegetables in a small space too! All you need is careful planning’. The area in which I grow my vegetables is not massive either; around 50m2 and that seems to be sufficient for me and my hubby, JP. Now is also the ideal time to start planning ahead for the new season.

Firstly, ask yourself a few questions:

• What do I like to eat? There is no point growing things you don’t like!
• How much sunlight does my garden get? Although most vegetables like to have at least a few hours sun per day, there are vegetables that don’t mind shade. If you have a very shady garden, go for lettuces, chard, radishes or cabbages.
• What are the terms & conditions for gardening if I rent my home?
• How much time can I dedicate to gardening?

Once you have considered these questions carefully, it’s time to draw up a plan!

This is just one example of a small scale home growing plan:
 

Spring (from April - June)

Summer (from late June - end September)

Winter (from end September - January)

This is based on roughly 1m2 (around 1 foot2 per each type of vegetable).

I’ve added a couple of strawberry plants in the schedule, because, take it from me; nothing beats the taste of home grown strawberries! Of course, you can play around with what you want to grow, nothing is set in stone, but do read the information on the seed packet about how big something grows and what the requirements are.
If you are growing on a small area, I would suggest you buy small plants, because it’s a lot less time consuming and you don’t need to worry about soil temperature too much.
Cabbages take up lots of space, so you can only grow one per foot2, but if you feel adventurous you could make 1 cabbage into sauerkraut for eating during the winter months, like we do.
I also left out potatoes, onions and garlic. They take up a lot of space and are fairly cheap to buy in the supermarket. But you could plant 1 clove of (supermarket) garlic in between the other vegetables in November and come October next year you should have a whole new garlic bulb!
So you see... even in a small garden you are still able to grow a variety of your favourite vegetables.

In the February newsletter; stay tuned for part two of small scale home growing!